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According to Christensen and Horn, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) are serving non-consumers. Although they are limited in the services they provide compared with traditional colleges, they offer free and accessible education to a broader audience, who cannot afford the traditional provision. However, this is a characteristic of online distance learning in its broadest sense, as can be read in the reports of UNESCO. For MOOCs to be disruptive, they have to: open up markets by competing with the existing firms using low-cost business models; improve beyond the level of the original competitors, taking price differences into account; and improve quality and replace the established firms. In this article, we are going to look at whether MOOCs are really disruptive innovations, or educational innovations that disturb the present state without driving out old educational business models. Based on the three characteristics of Christensen and Horn, our conclusion will be that the latter is the case. This does not mean that traditional education can ignore MOOCs, open educational resources and other forms of online distance learning, but that it will not be a direct competitor for degree-searching students.

"This is a critical examination of the claims that innovations such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) will disrupt the business models of the higher education sector. It describes what business models are, analyses the business model of free MOOCs offered by traditional universities and compares that model to that of paid online courses offered by distance teaching universities. The results of the analysis suggest that, in their present form, MOOCs are unlikely to address the challenge of reaching and assisting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and in developing countries. Nevertheless, MOOCs and the buzz surrounding them do signal a threat to the higher education sector, namely the widening gap between the skills of graduates of the educational system and the societal expectations from them."

"This is a critical examination of the claims that innovations such as massive open online courses (MOOCs) will disrupt the business models of the higher education sector. It describes what business models are, analyses the business model of free MOOCs offered by traditional universities and compares that model to that of paid online courses offered by distance teaching universities. The results of the analysis suggest that, in their present form, MOOCs are unlikely to address the challenge of reaching and assisting students from disadvantaged backgrounds and in developing countries. Nevertheless, MOOCs and the buzz surrounding them do signal a threat to the higher education sector, namely the widening gap between the skills of graduates of the educational system and the societal expectations from them."